grey eyes, lattes, blue cookies and such
by cheadsearc
Summary: two broken strangers meet over an online chatroom and strike up a conversation :: love works in strange ways doesn't it? :: percabeth :: now edited


**_::prologue::_**

My attic wasn't very big.

Who was I kidding? _Big?_ It couldn't even be called small. It was microscopic.

It had a slant roof, forming a steep slope above my head and sickly green walls, which looked dirtier from the thin layer of dust covering it. A box labelled TWINS TOYS was stuffed into one corner (occupying more than half the room) and a small window with a wide ledge was squeezed in the remaining place. It wasn't much. _Hell,_ it couldn't be called anything.

But I loved it.

I sat by the window every day, the whistling winds blowing at incredible speeds through my hair, creating an unmanageable mess out of it and making me struggle to keep the pages of whatever book I was reading, from flying. Sometimes, I cranked up the old radio that I had bought from the thrift store and listened to soft, classical music from some station whose name I'd never know. It was my piece of bliss. Uninterrupted and untainted.

Perhaps that was why I first contacted Percy Jackson from there.

I was all of thirteen years old, puberty was setting in and showing prominently as a few splatters of pimples on my face – much to the horror of my _darling_ stepmother. Dad wasn't home much – always travelling across the country to present some paper or to receive some meaningless award or too-heavy trophy. I had stopped asking him about his trips after some time. After all, what was the point if it was going to be a one-sided conversation? The twins were sweethearts – gap-toothed and always ready for a scuffle in the backyard.

But me?

I didn't know what I was.

Remember the saying 'black sheep of the group'? Well, I was the black sheep (with blonde hair, which didn't make much sense) of the Chase family. And trust me when I say this: it wasn't a very desirable position to have:

"Susan, is this your daughter?" The well-meaning-woman-with-a-too-big-smile would ask, when I accidentally entered the room while my stepmother had a guest over.

"Oh." Awkward silence. "She's not actually my daughter. This is Annabeth. Annabeth, dear, don't you have homework to do?" Tight smile. Of _course_ you don't want me to meet her, Susan. After all, I'm the weirdo, right?

I would gladly admit this: it hurt, when Susan failed to set the fifth dinner plate for me, or when Dad acted as if I was an invisible fly on the wall. The only ones who _seemed_ to consider me as an actual family member was Matthew and Bobby, those little darlings, despite all the warnings and threats handed to them by their mother, not to talk to me because I was 'dangerous' or some shit like that.

What did it even mean? What was so dangerous about a lonely, tired girl who was just seeking for some warmth and love from those who were supposed to give it?

I didn't know. I would never know.

And so, at the age of thirteen, I was not the typical excited on-the-cusp-of-adulthood kind of girl you would expect.

I was the kind of girl who would hide away in dark places to block out her stepmother's lashings and her father's ignorance.

Which brought us to the attic.

The attic was my safe haven. My Elysium. A pretty small heaven, but heaven after all. I thought I'd seen a few rats and lizards around (but no spiders, thank heavens) but it was at a safe distance, as far away as could be from the window ledge on which I sat (which wasn't much… but oh well).

I scrambled up to this tiny room every single day – some days in tears, some days marginally happier, but whatever my mood was, this tiny, dirty attic, looking over the skyscrapers of Manhattan brought a semblance of peace to my soul. There was a collection of books under the floorboards – Susan threw them away if she saw them lying around in my room (calling them a waste of time which would not help my future in any way. Basically, she wanted to make my life a living hell). It was just a dozen paperbacks, written by lesser known authors, that I liked, but those dozen books helped me escape reality, if only for a moment.

I also had a phone, surprisingly – a discarded one of my Dad's, which was a 'gift' on my thirteenth birthday.

A 'gift' which came three months after my actual birthday.

But I wasn't complaining. The mere fact that I got a _phone_ was a victory in itself. And the ways it helped me was wonderful and freeing.

This might seem strange, but here's the thing: I was grateful to that old, battered, cracked-screen phone. Why, you asked?

Well… for five years since one fateful day in the late autumn of my thirteenth year, I talked to Percy Jackson over it.

And this could be the cheesiest thing you read in your lifetime – but he was the best thing that happened to me.

/

 **so this is the edited version of _grey eyes, lattes, blue cookies and such_ and i hope you like it! for those of you who follow my other stories (especially _colour of my blood_ ), please bear with me as updates will be extremely slow. sorry. :/ ****review? :)**


End file.
